


Constructive Criticism

by Sparklespirit



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Go read Lit Crit by Tammany, Inspired by Fanfiction, M/M, Metafiction, Mild Depressed Philosophy, Pining, Present Tense, Temporal Weirdness, it's so good, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 10:40:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20704616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparklespirit/pseuds/Sparklespirit
Summary: Mycroft Holmes lives alone. Nothing else would be fitting, for a man without a future.





	Constructive Criticism

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tammany](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Lit Crit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2655605) by [Tammany](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany). 

> So this little story bit me in the Muse after I read "Lit Crit" by Tammany, and I drafted this in an hour, and am just now editing and posting it about a year later. Hope you like this!

Mycroft Holmes lives alone.

His work is his life. He drinks expensive scotch and wears tailored suits and plays games of chess with the world, but he knows he is a hollow man.

Mycroft has the now, he has the thrill of making his move, planning the elegant shifts of a thousand pieces of an ever-changing puzzle. He has his days, his reports, the paperwork and videos, but it’s never quite enough.

He is a hermit crab, and his shell is his office. He has his haunts and his habits, drifting through every day as he has a hundred before it.

He interacts with only Anthea on a daily basis, and barely a nod or a gesture or a perfunctory thanks at that. The only other people he really sees, more than as a fellow chess master across a negotiating table, are his little brother and his associates.

John Watson, the making or breaking of his volatile little brother, and Mrs. Hudson, the mother his own mother never was. And Detective Inspector Lestrade. He is everything Mycroft is not- personable, glowing, friendly, full of life and spirit and drive where Mycroft himself was empty.

Lestrade forges on into the future, pulling Sherlock along in his wake, giving cases and assistance and keeping Sherlock’s great, fragile mind from tearing itself apart. Lestrade’s was the future, and he had a past, a divorce and ugly settlement, but he had moved on. Not like Mycroft, who could only watch the man and wish that he could have a future, a chance.

That is why he hides in work, setting puzzles and traps and responsibilities to keep him from dwelling on past and present and future.

He has too much past, a childhood passed forlorn and lonely and all too quickly over. His oddity and intelligence and not least his little brother pushed him into growing up, caring for others and never making his own life. He had done the best he knew how and drifted along to where he was, powerful and unquestioned and an island. The Ice Man, the meddling brother, who would maybe be remembered as a minor politician one day. Mycroft knows he will never get recognition for his works. What he will get is a pension and a quick transition, rapidly forgotten once he can no longer serve. In all practical terms, he has no future to look forward to.

But still he watches, and admires, and never touches the one who pulls him forward and makes him feel a tiny spark of life in his dust-coated heart again.

One day, like all others, he checks his email and goes through paperwork, attempting to keep the maudlin thoughts away until socially acceptable to drink, when he receives an email from Anthea. Frowning slightly, he opens it, puzzling over what she might choose not to tell him in person.

The letter is empty except for one sentence and a link- “You might want to see this- Lestrade’s files” He hovers over the link, cursing his curiosity and asking silent forgiveness for this betrayal.

Of course, he opens it, and he sees something he never could have expected.

There are hundreds of documents, titled like stories. He opens one at random, and keeps reading past the first few words, eyes blown wide as he looks for the joke, as he looks for another story.

The next hours pass in a blur, Mycroft reading like a drowning man, soaking in the stories and their pasts and futures with abandon. He lets himself go in the sheer pleasure of reading, as he rarely ever does, shock and denial turning to amazement as he realizes every single story was about him and Lestrade.

He and Lestrade, childhood friends, met in college, retired together, every time and place and story he could imagine, captured in words that twinkled with promise and longing and hope of happiness.

He sits shocked, staring at his screen after reading the last, after three days of reading to the exclusion of nearly all else.

No one had ever really cared about him, not even to send a letter or so much as a thank-you card. He knows he has to seize this chance, not letting anything like rational thoughts stop him from the wild hope.

Mycroft calls Lestrade in, thinking it would provide him the opening he has no idea how to take. Of course, Lestrade comes, puzzled until Mycroft shows him the files. Then he sits, struck with terror, much like Mycroft. (He has the now, but he has no idea what to say, not to make a future.)

He awkwardly compliments the quality of the writing. Those words are the only things that have made him cry since he was fifteen and heartbroken, for the first and last time. Ugly, shocked, euphoric tears.

Lestrade’s face falls even as he smiles sadly and accepts the compliment.

They follow their familiar paths, same words and questions and business as always. Just before Lestrade leaves, Mycroft asks him the question that has been on his mind since the fifth story he read (three days ago.)

Lestrade gives a response about pasts and futures and the improbability of present occurrences, and Mycroft knows, _he can work with this._

_ Oh, to hell with it all,_ Mycroft thinks, and doesn’t for the next glorious second, kissing Lestrade like he is the only solid thing in the universe, knowing he has to do it now or give up his chance forever.

When he pulls back, breathless and shocked with himself, he smiles tentatively, shyly, and looks down.

Lestrade’s eyes shine with happiness, brighter than the sun, and the glint of a future for the man with too many and the man without.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are lovely and I will adore you forever if you enable my mangling of the English language


End file.
